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OPINION: Why South Africans Murder Nigerians In Cold Blood

Published

2 weeks ago

May 3, 2026

By Festus Adedayo

A commenter on X, obviously a South African national, with the name Paul, reacted to a CableNews April 27 report that two Nigerians were killed in recent spike in South Africa’s xenophobic attacks on fellow Africans. He said: “They were burnt alive…our country isn’t a playing zone. They (sic) will be more Nigerian criminals to be buried this Saturday.” Paul was writing with the handle, @blewcash.easymoney.referral, with the South African national flag hoisted on his comment. A BBC report had earlier quoted a 43-year-old Democratic Republic of Congo national living in Hillbrow, S.A. as saying he felt lucky to be alive: “My best friend was attacked one morning… He was stoned to death like a dog. Imagine someone runs away from his own land and comes here to find peace but ends up getting killed.”

A 2017 report cited by Nigeria’s House of Representatives said that 116 Nigerians were killed in South Africa over a preceding two-year period, out of which, roughly 20 were killed in 2016. Though not a recent phenomenon, xenophobic attacks in South Africa have assumed epidemic proportion. As far back as 1994, in the rush for scarce resources, immigrants face stiff push, leading to violent discrimination. Record has it that in 2008, South Africa harvested 62 deaths from xenophobic uprising and attacks. A 2018 Pew research poll reported that 62% of South Africans believed immigrants constituted social and economic burdens and were responsible for crimes. At the moment, South Africa’s rate of unemployment, ranked as one of the highest in the world, oscillates around 33%. Xenophobia attacks increased after Nelson Mandela and a black majority government deposed white rule, inflicted by assailants who allege that job losses result from foreigners’ infiltration.

Julius Malema, South African opposition politician and leader of the Economic Freedom Fighters, had a stinging remark against such claims. Last Thursday, at the 14th anniversary of Collen Mashawana Foundation, he took a swipe at xenophobia by saying, “I want to challenge you who say ‘Zimbabweans take your jobs, Nigerians take your jobs’ and you march, close shops, and beat up people. Tell us after doing that, how many jobs have you created?… Unskilled men, with no skill whatsoever, say somebody took their jobs. The skill they know is to drink and want to pretend like revolutionaries.”

South African politicians, like ones in uMkhonto weSizwe (MK) led by ex-President Jacob Zuma, latch on this to make xenophobic comments to gain political advantage. Early this year, Zulu king, Misuzulu kaZwelithini, used highly derogatory term for immigrants while calling for their eviction. He spoke by the rocky Isandlwana hill, in a place where history recorded that, 147 years ago, his forefathers, commanding 20,000 Zulu warriors in the Anglo-Zulu war, defeated 1,800 British soldiers in the battle of Isandlwana.

The 51-year king said: “The kwerekwere must leave,” kwerekwere being a derogatory word for African migrants. His late father, Goodwill Zwelithini, made similar offensive call in 2015, asking immigrants to “pack their belongings”. This led to a rise in vigilante anti-migrant groups, chief of which is the Operation Dudula (Dudula in Zulu language meaning “to be removed by force”) as well as March on March, with their notoriety flourishing daily.

There is no way we can locate South Africans’ violence against fellow blacks unless we go into history. In 2019, South Africans unleashed an unprecedented assault on Nigerians which resulted in loss of property worth billions of Naira. To understand this hate, we have to trace its genealogy. It will explain the infliction of horrendous pains on fellow blacks by South Africans.

Historically, since 1948, Black South Africans have harboured bile, violence and rancid hatred for other races. 1948 was the year Apartheid was institutionalized as a system of white minority rule. It led to acute racial segregation. The Apartheid system also forced non-white into segregated areas, restricted their rights to mingle with whites and took away their voting rights. These further inflicted incalculable damage on their psyche. The National Party, led by such leaders like Pieter Willem Botha, enforced this oppressive policy of apartness.

Today, though Apartheid was defeated by the collective voices of the world in 1994, it has not died. While you may see imposing infrastructural relics of white rule in South Africa, its innards are made of up of irreconcilable dysfunction, hate and quest for vengeance of 1948 to 1994.

If you read the works of authors like Mazisi Kunene, Ezekiel Mphalele, Peter Abrahams, Alf Wannenburg and many others, you will understand why South Africans haven’t purged themselves of their bond with violence.

I have searched frantically for the lure of the gruesome murders of Nigerians and other African nationals at the drop of a hat by South Africans. My findings revealed a retained savagery of Apartheid. Placing stories of blood spillage under Apartheid with the recent ease with which South Africans hack fellow Blacks to death, a knowledge of the country’s historical development will bail you out of wonderment. If you now read Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness and William Golding’s classic, Lord of the Flies, place the bestiality in the books beside the black-on-black hate in South Africa today and you will agree with white theorists’ submission that the Blackman has within him innate bestiality. Today, South African blacks only need very little provocation to unleash an ancestry of savagery, like Golding’s little boys marooned on an island, whose animalism took the better part of them.

Like Fela Anikulapo-Kuti sang, quoting Botha, Apartheid indeed brought out the beast in South Africans. Today, fellow blacks have replaced whites in their subconscious. The moment the system castrated the Blackman’s manhood, he became a lot less than an animal, with no difference between his behaviour and those of his ape ancestors. If you read the history of the South African liberation struggle, it is replete with macabre and a number of horrendous murders that would make a civilized world shudder. In the name of the struggle, many of those atrocities were excused and overlooked; indeed, they came to the world’s knowledge seldom. The world focused, on the reverse, on the evil regime of Frederick de Clark and the atrocities of segregating white from Indians, the black and coloured. The dastardly act of murdering fellow blacks they labeled Askaris, who were alleged to have betrayed the liberation struggle, were never heard. Thus, we never knew how ignoble and bloodless the hearts of our South African brothers were.

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You will recall the trial of Winnie Mandela and the allegation of her involvement in the murder of some youths, who went by the façade of a football club. The murdered boys were alleged to be squealing on the liberation struggle. They were summarily tried by the “Winnie Boys”, sentenced to death and executed, similar to how a Nigerian police officer, ASP Nuhu Usman, was captured on video executing a 28-year-old suspect, Mene Ogidi, last week in Effurun, Delta State. Winnie was eventually tried for these murders which constituted one of the thousands of gruesome killings by blacks under Apartheid.

If you read some of the works of Alex la Guma, like A Walk In the Night, you will encounter District Six, the inner city of Cape Town, home to all sorts of sub-human activities and why horrendous murder became part and parcel of the people’s existence. Mutual knifing, unprovoked arson, murders and all sorts were carried out with a clinical finish that would make a decent man shudder. In Quartet and In the Fog of the Seasons’ End, you will encounter the bestiality that Apartheid wrought on the psyche of our so-called brothers. Many black South Africans lost their humanity in the process.

Umkhonto we Sizwe, the armed wing of the African National Congress (ANC), founded by Mandela in 1961, perpetrated a lot of criminal activities and mindless murders that were swept under the rug while Mandela was in jail. Several South Africans who were accused of betraying the struggle were tagged Askari or “cockroaches” got summarily executed and nobody ever heard of their deaths thereafter.

If Gen Z South Africans who hate Nigerians this much, apparently not born in 1994 or are too young to appreciate the roles Nigeria played to get them the freedom that made them fiefs in their own land, methinks elderly South Africans should retell the story to them. After all, my people say if a child was not alive to witness history (Ìtàn) in manifestation, they will at least hear historical narratives (àróbá). In total, it is said that, from 1960 when Tafawa Balewa made Africa the centerpiece of Nigeria’s foreign policy, to 1994 during Sani Abacha regime, Nigeria wasted an estimated $60 billion on funding the anti-Apartheid struggle.

That Nigerian intervention actually began with the Sharpeville Massacre of March 21, 1960. Police had opened fire on a crowd of protesters outside a police station in the township of Sharpeville. They were protesting Apartheid system’s Pass laws which required Blacks to obtain passes to move around. 72 blacks were killed and about 184 wounded in one fell swoop. In protest, Nigerian university students voluntarily skipped their lunch for a month, and the proceeds remitted to South Africa. It was called the Mandela Tax. Not only did they make fetish of the evil of Apartheid, Nigerian students mobilized public opinion in support of people they felt were their brothers, with many young Nigerians contributing from their little pocket monies in aid of the struggle.

In the same vein, many tertiary institutions formed clubs like Youth Solidarity on South Africa. Nigeria then boycotted the 1976 Olympics and 1979 Commonwealth games, leading to national losses. To get South Africa liberated quickly, Nigeria declined selling oil to the apartheid regime. Aside these, Nigeria played a vital role in the anti-apartheid struggle through music, using powerful songs to mobilize awareness and solidarity across Africa and beyond. Artists like Fela Kuti and Sonny Okosun used their voices to condemn oppression, inspire resistance, and amplify the call for freedom in South Africa.

Apart from frontline states like Zimbabwe, Zambia, Angola, Mozambique and Namibia, no nation could rival Nigeria in contributions to the struggle against apartheid. If you read the book, Diplomatic Soldiering (1987) written by Gen. Joe Garba, Nigeria’s foreign affairs minister under Gens. Murtala Muhammed/Olusegun Obasanjo, you will have an idea of the quantum of fortune Nigeria sank into the liberation of South Africa and South African states. On many occasions, Nigeria single-handedly picked the bills of programmes associated with the struggle. Thousands of South African youths received scholarship to study in Nigerian universities, nursing schools, polytechnics and colleges of education. Frustrated at some point, Obasanjo, as Head of State, once threatened to deploy all means possible to fight Apartheid to a standstill, including invoking what he called the Blackman’s magical power.

At some point, Nigeria was home to South African freedom fighters like Thabo Mbeki’s father, Govan Mbeki; Albert Luthuli and other ANC leaders who were here on asylum. Nigeria also richly funded ANC’s military wing, Umkhonto we Sizwe. Thabo, Mbeki’s son, was also on exile in Nigeria from 1976 to 1979.

On May 13, 1990, upon his release from a combination of terms in Robben Island, Pollsmoor, and Victor Verster Prisons which cumulatively stood at 27 years, President Nelson Mandela was on a courtesy visit to Nigeria. At the Murtala Square, Kaduna, he affirmed that Nigeria made the highest donation to South Africa’s liberation. To further underscore this, on April 27, on the Freedom Day which marks South Africa’s first democratic elections in 1994, President Cyril Ramaphosa reminded his country of the debt it owes other nations on the continent who supported their struggle against the racist system of apartheid.

The children and grandchildren of Nigerians who made those huge sacrifices are now the ones being killed in South Africa today. As Nigerians, we have our own drawbacks, but violence of the South African kind is alien to us.

My take is that, if Nigerian governments, from independence to 1994, had spent the estimated $60b frittered on South Africa on the future of Nigerians, their offspring would not be hibernating in South Africa today. South Africans may also jolly well still be in captivity. We owe it a duty to both ourselves and country to make Nigeria too a pleasant country, a country which, travelling out of it would be for mere sightseeing, rather than for economic liberation. The hopelessness at home and the serial plunder of our country by our own kin, the notoriety of which is a tale told in all the four corners of the globe, are reasons we weigh little in the estimation of the world. Again, the criminal lifestyles, drug-pushing and excessive self-underscore that our nationals live abroad cannot but make us objects of xenophobia.

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Otuaro: Baseless Allegations, Disregard Them, Group Urges Public

Published

2 hours ago

May 17, 2026

Editor

The Ijaw People’s Development Initiative, IPDI has reacted to a statement circulating online regarding the Presidential Amnesty Programme (PAP), describing it as baseless.

The statement under the disguise ‘Niger Delta Stakeholders Forum and Niger Delta Ethnic Nationalities,’ had demanded accountability regarding the management of the Programme and its administrator, Dr Dennis Otuaro.

Reacting to the statement, National President, IPDI, Comrade Austin Ozobo, said: “We consider it necessary to respond point by point to correct misconceptions, reject unsubstantiated claims, and keep the record straight in the interest of PAP beneficiaries, stakeholders, and the general public.

“It is worthy of note that the PAP operates under strict federal financial regulations and is subject to routine audits by the Office of the Auditor-General of the Federation, the Ministry of Finance, and other oversight bodies.

“All disbursements, including stipends, vocational training, education support, and third-party contracts, are processed through the Treasury Single Account, TSA, with verifiable records”, the statement read.

According to the IPDI, the Programme welcomes lawful criticism and scrutiny at any time. However, linking such a call to specific individuals without evidence amounts to trial by the media and undermines due process.

“Dr Dennis Otuaro, administrator of the Presidential Amnesty Programme has maintained a good record of financial management, hence no formal petition with verifiable evidence has been submitted to any anti-graft agency till date”.

“It may interest you to know that the N65,000 monthly stipend is fixed by the Appropriation Act and can only be reviewed through a budgetary process approved by the National Assembly and the Presidency.

‘The PAP management has consistently conveyed beneficiaries’ concerns on cost of living to relevant authorities”.

“Again, claims that allocations to the Programme have risen significantly while stipends remain unchanged misrepresents the budget structure.

“Note, increased allocations in recent years have been tied to expanded reintegration programs, education sponsorships, skills acquisition, and infrastructure support for training centers, not solely to stipend payments”.

The group reiterated that the allegation that the Amnesty Programme Office “kidnaps and detains delegates” is false, reckless, and defamatory, adding that the PAP has no paramilitary or law enforcement mandate, nor does it operate detention facilities and that any incident involving law enforcement is outside the control and purview of the Programme.

“We challenge the authors to provide verifiable details of time, place, and persons involved so the matter can be addressed through appropriate legal channels,” the group said

On Claims of Selective Empowerment and 500% Payment Increases, the group maintained that payments to contractors, ex-agitator leaders, and service providers were governed by existing contracts and agreements predating the current administration.

“No individual or camp has received unilateral increases without contractual basis or due process. Allegations of 500% increases are unsubstantiated and designed to stoke division among beneficiaries,” it added.

“The current administration has maintained a policy of transparency in engagement with leaders and has expanded inclusion by verifying and capturing previously omitted beneficiaries where due“, IPDI added.

The group further said, “The PAP remains a neutral, peace-building institution established under the 2009 Amnesty Declaration. Its mandate is to coordinate disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration. The Office does not engage in political victimization, intimidation, or exclusion of stakeholders. Engagement with ex-agitator leaders and community structures is conducted based on their role in maintaining peace and facilitating reintegration, not political alignment”.

“The PAP under Chief Denis Otuaro’s leadership remains committed to transparency, fairness, and the original mandate of the Amnesty Programme. Constructive criticism is welcome and has informed policy adjustments in the past. However, campaigns of calumny, unverified allegations, and attempts to drag the Programme into commercial or political disputes do not serve the interest of peace in the Niger Delta”, IPDI said.

“We urge all stakeholders to channel grievances through the established engagement channels of the Programme and to avoid statements that threaten the fragile stability we have worked to sustain”.

Consequently, the IPDI urges members of the public to disregard what its described as “flimsy and unsubstantiated allegations, misconception, and missives by faceless groups above“.

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[OPINION] Olukoyede’s EFCC: Taming The ‘Fantastically-Corrupt’

Published

2 hours ago

May 17, 2026

Editor

Since its creation 23 years ago, by Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, as president of Nigeria, Africa’s most populous and influential country, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), had apparently not gotten a head, who had piloted the affairs of the commission, like Mr. Olanipekun Olukoyede, its Executive Chairman, a chief-operations-officer of the Commission.

It could be said that Olukoyede, the Czar thief catcher and arrestor of economic saboteurs, has given the EFCC’s enemies such a tough time as he has taking the anti-graft fight to the doorsteps of the high-profile individuals across the country. These range from former state governors, serving and former ministers, retired and serving civil servants, businessmen, clergies, traditional rulers, cyber-influencer, entertainers, professionals and numerous others.

Olukoyede brings years of experience in law, fraud management, and business intelligence to bear on the position. Before him, Mallam Nuhu Ribadu was EFCC’s inaugural chair; succeeded by the first and only female, Mrs. Farida Waziri; Ibrahim Lamorde, Ibrahim Magu, and Abdul Rasheed Bawa.

The anti-graft agency has its hands full with massive financial fraud and money laundering cases. In the clause of “physicians, look at thyself”, EFCC in its resolve is known to have been flushing out officers within the body, who run foul to the law.

In the past, before Olukoyede’s appointment, it was widely believed that it was only the “fries and not the big fishes”, who the Commission could summon the courage to prosecute; and that most culprits were also left from the hook, because of compromise by some corrupt officers of the Commission, and feeble litigation processes.

Mr. Godwin Emefiele, former Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), happened to have opened to Olukoyede’s a deluge of “big-men and women”, who have been arrested, investigated and cooling their feet in detention or those bailed, that are facing severe court trials. There is the biggest 19-count charge at the Ikeja Special Offences Court, involving an alleged $4.5 billion fraud.
Immediate-paste governor of Kogi State, Yahaya Bello, faces two massive, but separate legal battles totalling over N190 billion on fraud allegation. EFCC secured from the Court of Appeal, forfeiture of 14 properties and huge money linked to him.

Abubakar Malami (former Attorney-General of the Federation), with his son, Abdulaziz and his wife, is currently charged on a-16-count of money laundering. The court has stayed interim forfeiture of 57 properties valued at over N213 billion.

EFCC had also secured the arrest of Sadiya Umar-Farouq, a female former Minister of Humanitarian Affairs, and a former Permanent Secretary, through a Federal High Court, on a 21-point alleged fraud and corruption charge, involving $1.3 million and N746.6m and others amounting to 37.1 billion.

Uju Kennedy-Ohanenye, also female and former Minister of Women Affairs, was removed from office by President Bola Tinubu, over alleged misappropriation and diversion of N138.4 million, and had been under EFCC questioning.

A recent discovery, which startled Nigerians and the world, the Commission (EFCC) had reportedly arrested a serving Director-General of the Energy Commission of Nigeria, Dr. Mustapha Abdullahi, over alleged money laundering involving about ₦500 billion.

Somewhat, this had deflated the claim that those arrested and persecuted are political opponents and not serving officers of the Tinubu’s government.

EFCC is a “Nigerian law enforcement and anti-graft agency that investigates financial crimes, such as advance fee fraud (419 Fraud) and money laundering. It was also set up to fight against corruption and to protect the country from economic saboteurs”.

The Commission, whilst responding to pressures from the Financial Action Task Force on Money Laundering (FATF), that named Nigeria as one of 23 countries not cooperating in the international community’s efforts to fight money laundering, had revved in performance, in a bid to roll back the blights.

And so, it is a strenuous goal for EFCC, as entrenched in the ‘EFCC Establishment Act 2004’, which gives it specialist jurisdiction against severe financial and commercial crime – covering multiple high and lower levels.

Born on 14 October 1969, Olukoyede, a civil servant, has had a clear break from past, where past executive chairmen of the Commission had left the Commission, where all serving officers were drafted from the Nigerian Police Force (NPF). However, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu is widely commended for Olukoyede’s appointment to the position, with the Senate also eulogized for screening him.

Whilst briefing the Press in Abuja, on his two-year activities in office, on October 23, 2025, the Commission’s boss certainly made unprecedented progress in the fight against economic and financial crimes. He spoke through the Director of Public Affairs of the Commission, Wilson Uwujaren, as he listed the recovery of N566 billion, alongside other currencies and assets, among the achievements of the Commission.

He further revealed that the Commission received over 19,000 petitions, conducted 29,240 investigations, filed 10,525 cases in court, and secured 7,503 convictions.

Olukoyede asserted that the Commission recovered ₦566,319,820,343.40, $411,566,192.32, £71,306.25, €182,877.10, and other foreign currencies from proceeds of financial and economic crimes. Added to this was the recovery of 1,502 non-monetary assets, comprising 402 properties in 2023, 975 in 2024, and 125 so far in 2025.

“Among these recovered assets are two notable landmarks: the final forfeiture of 753 units of duplexes in Lokogoma, Abuja, and the forfeiture of Nok University, now the Federal University of Applied Sciences, Kachia, Kaduna State,” he said.

He listed several high-profile cases prosecuted within the period, including those involving former governors Willie Obiano, Abdulfatah Ahmed, Darius Ishaku, Theodore Orji, and Yahaya Bello. Others are former ministers Olu Agunloye, Mamman Saleh, Hadi Sirika, Charles Ugwu, and former Central Bank Governor, Godwin Emefiele.

EFCC was also said to have reentered and invigorated some longstanding fraud cases, such as ones linking Fred Ajudua, former People Democratic Party, PDP National Chairman Haliru Bello Mohammed, ex-National Security Adviser Sambo Dasuki, and former Nigerian Social Insurance Trust Fund, NSITF boss, Ngozi Olojeme.

The EFCC said it arrested 792 suspects involved in asset and cryptocurrency frauds in Lagos, among who were 192 foreigners who were prosecuted and deported.

A Task Force on Naira Abuse and Dollarisation of the Economy was established by EFCC, which accordingly, had notable impacts in sanitizing money actions countrywide. “The campaign against naira abuse, racketeering, and speculative currency trading has helped reduce pressure on the naira and complemented the Central Bank’s efforts in stabilizing the economy,” he said.

Olukoyede also spoke on the Commission’s strengthened partnerships with foreign law enforcement agencies, including the Korean Police, Royal Canadian Mounted Police, Spanish Police, and German Police.

He also mention benefitting synergy with the FBI, the UK’s National Crime Agency (NCA), INTERPOL, and Japan’s JICA, in subsequent joint investigations and the repatriation of stolen assets to victims from Spain, Canada, and the United States.

Strengthening EFFC’s mandate at the regional level, and in Africa, Olukoyede and the Commission are said to be up and doing. For instance, a thing that had never happened to EFFC, he had been twice elected as President of the Network of National Anti-Corruption Institutions in West Africa (NACIWA), which led to the founding of a permanent secretariat in Abuja.

A strong media presence is needed to successfully inform the public of the ideals of EFCC and its update activities. And so, ‘EFCC Radio 97.3FM’, Nigeria’s first anti-corruption radio station, was established Olukoyede. EFCC should count itself very lucky for having in its fold, tested, diligent and veteran journalists who are ostensibly seasoned in the ideals and watchdog principles of the Commission.

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APC Primaries: Johnny Rallies Support For Senator Thomas’ Re-election Bid

Published

3 hours ago

May 17, 2026

Editor

A chieftain of the All Progressives Congress in Delta State, Chief Michael Johnny, has called on Delta South Senatorial District’s party faithful to come out in large tomorrow and vote for Senator Joel-Onowakpo Thomas (JOT) in the party senatorial primary election.

Johnny, widely regarded as a leader par excellence within the APC, described the primary election as a critical moment that will determine the political stability, unity, and future direction of Delta South.

According to him, Delta South needs a detribalized leader with the capacity to unite people beyond ethnic sentiments and political divisions.

He warned against leaders whose style of politics promotes ethnic division and unnecessary tension within the region.

Chief Johnny stated that Senator Thomas has continued to distinguish himself as a leader who carries everyone along, irrespective of tribe, political background, or local government affiliation.

He noted that JOT’s leadership style has strengthened cooperation, peace, fairness, and political inclusion across Delta South.

Speaking further, Chief Johnny declared that the Ijaw people have resolved to stand firmly behind Thomas because fairness, justice, and political balance must prevail in Delta South.

“As Ijaw people, we have decided to support Senator Joel because this is the turn of the Isoko nation, and Ijaw stands for truth. That is our position,” he stated.

He also appreciated what he described as “genuine Itsekiri sons and daughters” who believe in fairness, equity, and peaceful coexistence, adding that Delta South can only move forward when the various ethnic nationalities work together in unity and mutual respect.

Chief Johnny maintained that the senatorial district must not be dragged backward by divisive politics or ethnic interests capable of weakening the collective strength of the region.

He stressed that all APC members in Delta South must remain united in their support for Senator Joel-Onowakpo Thomas.

“Delta South is bigger than personal interests. This election is about unity, stability, fairness, and the future of our people. Senator JOT represents continuity, experience, and inclusive leadership for all ethnic groups in Delta South,” Chief Johnny added.